Showing posts with label the art zoo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the art zoo. Show all posts

Sunday, February 15, 2009

A Couple of Nice Surprises

There are a few blogs that I read regularly. Quite a few, actually. I read quickly (one of my friends says I do everything at warp speed), so I don't really mind that my list of blogs to read is growing. One of my favorite blogs is one that doesn't even have words: The Art Zoo. It hasn't been around for all that long, but it's a nice bit of eye candy. Every day there's a featured item from an Etsy shop. So today I popped over there to see what was featured, and look what it was!

Yep, that's the newest version of my Damask beadwoven cuff featured there. It's kind of nice, too, that they didn't just pull the first picture from the listing, but instead chose one that shows off the bracelet next to the scrapbooking paper I carefully chose as the background.

Another blog I read is The Copper Cauldron. Casandra frequently posts pictures of goodies she finds while internet surfing, and it's fun to see what she finds. Early in February, I saw a post called The 2 Dollar Grab Bag. Wouldn't you want to read a post to see what you're going to get for just $2? Well, I can tell you that it was a WONDERFUL bargain!!! Casandra was selling more than ONE POUND of her handmade soaps for just $2 plus the cost of shipping. So for the ridiculously low price of $6.80, I received some delicious smelling soaps. For some reason I expected that I was going to wind up with little bits and pieces of soap, but these are all HUGE pieces. They're soooooo nice. I'm going to have to keep an eye on her Etsy shop to see if she offers these up again. (Right now Casandra's away, and her Etsy shop is in vacation mode; but you can click a little button to be notified of her return.)

If you're a regular reader of my blog (thanks!), you may have read my earlier post about my receiving a $10 gift certificate from Flawful Fibers. Well, I couldn't stand it any longer. Julie had listed a few new things on the site, and I just couldn't resist! I spent my $10 and then some and received the most luscious handspun yarn and roving!!! I'm not a spinner. Not really much of a knitter (although I'm in the middle of a knitting project right now). But I love yarn and fiber. I wound up choosing a beautiful roving, similar to this one:
and a handspun yarn similar to this:

Mine are slightly different than the ones pictured here, and they're both too beautiful for words. I'd never seen roving with bamboo in it, and the texture is just not to be believed. Now it makes me want to learn to spin. But then I'd need a spindle... or a wheel... Oh no! I feel another hobby coming on! Ack.

Lest you think all I've been doing is reading blogs and buying things, here are two of the newest listings in my Etsy shop. I made Obama Christmas and Valentine cards, and since I always include a little extra something as thanks to my customers, I made up some smaller notecards with Mr. Obama's image and an empty caption bubble to send along with the larger greeting cards. I decided to list a set of these in my Etsy shop. I tried to think of a clever acronym for them, but I settled on being alliterative - these are the Presidential Prelection mini notecards.


I even created little handmade envelopes for the cards, featuring one of Barack's speeches printed in red and blue. Cool, eh? :-)

The other recent listing in my Etsy shop is a beadwoven bracelet. This one features my patchwork design, all done in shades of green and blue. In all, there are 20 different beads used in this! Every time I do one of these patchwork bracelets, I'm soooooooo careful not to spill the beads. Since my "bead board" is an old cutting board with a piece of beading cloth (some fuzzy stuff that holds the beads still but doesn't get caught by the needle as I pick them up), there's always the risk that I'll tip it, or knock the edge of it, or something disastrous - and the beads will go flying all over the place.


With any luck, I'll soon be posting pictures of my newest beadwoven creation... I had a brainstorm just today on how I want to use these lovely Carnival Beads, made by Dee of Malodora. You might think they're beautiful here in this photo, but I can tell you that they're about a hundred times more beautiful in person.

But you're just going to have to wait to see what I make...
:-)

Friday, September 05, 2008

It's been another busy week! I kept meaning to come here to post, but I never quite got around to it. So I'm going to try to catch up...

First... Thanks to my cosmic sister Carol Dean (aka SandFibers) for sending me a note about my giveaway. Obviously, the bracelet that I have posted as the prize won't fit everyone; so I'm going to offer some alternative prizes. I haven't quite figured out what they'll be yet. Maybe a peyote triangle pendant. Maybe another bracelet. Maybe some of my Captioned Critters. Or maybe I'll just give the winner a choice!

Second... I made my 3333rd sale in my Etsy shop yesterday! Yes, I know you're thinking that it should have been on 9/3 to fit in with the whole "THREE" theme, but think about it. 9/4/2008. 9+4+2008=2021. And that's divisible by 3. It was fate. I hadn't advertised it anywhere, but I had already decided to award the person who bought that 3333rd item with something, so Kelly (who's a buyer on Etsy but doesn't have an Etsy shop of her own) got to choose some free gifts from my shop. She said she'd never won anything, and she was pretty happy to have won!

Third... Okay, this isn't Etsy related at all, but I'm pretty happy about it nonetheless. I thought my espresso machine was broken. And I was going through major latte withdrawal. Despite being able to have French press coffee, I really missed my lattes. The steam thingy was working just fine, but the water flowing through the coffee grounds had slowed to a mere trickle and was getting worse every day. I was prowling around on the internet doing research on what kind of machine I should buy, and I'd just about submitted the order for a $200 machine from Starbucks, when I came across a site talking about descaling. Apparently there's some kind of solution that can be purchased for cleaning a machine, but I read further and found that lemon juice would work. I headed into the kitchen, squirted a bunch of lemon juice into the water reservoir, cycled about 40 cups of water through the machine; and after only about 10 cups, it started to flow better!!! Yahoooooooo!!! My machine works again, and I had my lattes today! :-)

Fourth... I found my Moon River cuff featured on The Art Zoo blog yesterday!!! It's a pretty cool blog, and I'm definitely going to keep my eye out. Every day there are new items featured, and I love the other pieces I've seen featured. It's a great way to find Etsy goodies.

Fifth... Another Etsy seller, elizabethjayne, sent me a note to let me know she had featured my Obama cuff on her blog, in a very Democratic post. I just had to check out her shop, and look at this gorgeous necklace I found!!! Isn't that beautiful!??!


Fifth... This was a busy creating week for me! I listed a few new bracelets in my Etsy shop, as well as a couple of necklaces. One of the necklaces features a BEAUTIFUL turquoise colored raku button made by Lisa Peters. Here are the new creations:

Dusty Rose Stripes

Citrus Concentrate

Turquoise with a Twist
Luscious Lime and Teal Necklace

Midori

Crystal and Copper Cuff

There's more, but I'm tired of typing, and this post is getting really long! I'll just have to save some of it till later. :-)